The present invention relates to fishing lures, and in particular, sound-producing fishing lures. The present invention also relates to fishing lures designed for use with live bait, such as for example, worms.
It is well known to fish with a worm impaled upon a traditional fishing hook. It is also well known to incorporate a weight on or near the fishing hook/worm combination in order to appropriately locate the worm and hook at the bottom of a water body thereby increasing the chances of catching a fish. One method of weighting such a hook has been the attachment of a weight adjacent the hook. However, such an arrangement is plagued by the disadvantage that a fish, beginning to take the bait, has to lift the weight and thus may be scared away from being hooked. The traditional answer to such a problem has been to provide a weight with a aperture through which a fishing line is attached to the hook. As the fish attempts to take the worm, the line slides freely through the aperture of the lure and the fish does not easily detect the situation. Occasionally, fishermen desire to maintain the fixed connection between the weight and the hook and thus will force a small piece of wood, such as a toothpick, into the hole of the weight forcing the line against the outer wall of the aperture and preventing any slide of the weight upon the fishing line. Such a process is known as "pegging." Pegging, however, tends to generate a flat or weakened portion on the fishing line, thus increasing the possibility of a break in the line under tension when a fish is being caught. A more recent solution to provide reversible, fixed attachment to a fishing hook is disclosed in the Link U.S. Pat. No. 4,942,689. The Link patent discloses a fishing weight with an aperture and a rear recess. The recess is substantially filled with a rubbery material and within the rubbery material is a cavity having two openings. One of the openings communicates with the through aperture and the other opening restricts passage of the eyelet of the fishhook. In this manner, the eyelet of a fishhook may be inserted in the cavity thereby forming the fixed relationship between the hook and the weight, or alternatively, the fishermen may extract the eyelet from the cavity thereby creating a sliding relationship of the weight upon the fishing line and allowing the hook to be pulled free by a fish. One distinct disadvantage of the Link invention is that the outward opening of the rubberized cavity may become worn or torn by repeated usage. This, in turn, causes the ability of the weight to be "pegged" to the hook to be lost.
It is also desirable in the fishing lure industry to increase the attractiveness of lures by incorporating the ability to generate a sound. To the best of the inventor's knowledge, the combination of a peggable weight and sound production have not previously been combined in a single fishing lure.